


Belonging

by dawnperhaps



Series: Alpha Beta Chi [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Beta Chi AU, F/F, Fraternities & Sororities, Genderbending, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnperhaps/pseuds/dawnperhaps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crying gave her a headache, or maybe she already had one; either way, Combeferre doesn’t move to turn the lights on in her room, doesn’t even try to unbury herself from the mountain of comforters and pillows she’s constructed around herself, and if it’s difficult to breathe, well.  It already was for other reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belonging

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a friend of mine who probably encourages me a bit too much. Inspired by my impending graduation.

The crying gave her a headache, or maybe she already had one; either way, Combeferre doesn’t move to turn the lights on in her room, doesn’t even try to unbury herself from the mountain of comforters and pillows she’s constructed around herself, and if it’s difficult to breathe, well.  It already was for other reasons.

Yesterday, she’d convinced herself she was fine.  Enjolras wasn’t in their room the entire day, holed up in the library working on her latest project, and Combeferre had shut the door and placed the envelope in front her, staring at it and calmly talking herself into a positive, reasonable state of mind.  Courfeyrac had shouldered her way into the room around 8pm, two dresses in her hands and a bounce in her step.

“I want to dance!” she’d declared, holding out one of the dresses.  It was black and way shorter than anything in Combeferre’s closet, and Combeferre’s worn a quite a few tiny outfits for Enjolras’ Slut Walks.  “Because midterms are over and I deserve it.  And then I want you to dance in this dress.  For obvious reasons.”

Combeferre smiled and shook her head.  “Not tonight.”

Courfeyrac gaped at her.  “But!  It’ll be fun!  Remember fun?  From way back before you were double majoring in biology and philosophy and thus sacrificed your social life to gods of academia?”

“I’m just not in the mood.”

“You have to come, though, because Bahorel went home for the weekend and Grantaire is being an asshole and Jehan always makes some random person fall in love with her in the first three minutes she’s on the dancefloor and Aurelie invited Alain, so I won’t have anyone to dance with and I want to dance with you!  Specifically you in this bangin’ dress!”  She took a laborious breath.  “You don’t have homework, Combeferre!  I asked Joly!”

“Joly isn’t in all my classes.”

“She’s in the most of them!”

“This isn’t about homework, Courf, I just sort of tired.  I’m sorry.  Next weekend?”

Courfeyrac had fled to complain to one of the other girls, then – probably Jehan, who had tried and failed to convince Feuilly to come out with them, as well – and Combeferre had continued staring at the envelope until she managed to convince herself she really was okay with it.

So why she woke up this morning, caught sight of the envelope, and immediately burst into tears, she doesn’t understand, but she’s still there hours later.

She didn’t really expect Courfeyrac to stay away, but she certainly expected a louder introduction.

“Is there a girl under all those blankets?  Or did you manage to fuse yourself with the bed?”

She lifts the comforter and half-expects to find Courfeyrac kneeling there wearing a pair of Groucho glasses or maybe even a party hat, a noisemaker between her lips.  But Courfeyrac is dressed simply in one of Combeferre’s cardigans – one of the big ones with holes in the pockets – and her trademark knitted cap.  She looks warm and appealing, and Combeferre wants to reach out and skim her fingertips over the other girl’s skin before she remembers exactly why she’s miserable.

Courfeyrac does this sort of thing fairly regularly around the house.  She makes happiness house calls the same way a doctor might make medical house calls, sniffing out the girl who spent just a little too long in the bathroom or the one who missed breakfast and discovering the cause.  Enjolras calls her their ‘good cop’ sometimes because she always get the confession, but the suspect normally walks away smiling.  Combeferre appreciates the simplicity most days, the unspoken organization of their little family.  She isn’t certain how everything fell into place the way it did, but she shares Enjolras’ conviction that things tend to work out for the best when everyone does their part.

“Go away,” she grumbles, lowering the blanket back over her head and disappearing.  It’s not a very firm command, probably because she doesn’t really want Courfeyrac to go away.  She really, really wants to want it, though.  It’s something of a theme in her life.

“Ooh, are we roleplaying?” comes Courfeyrac’s teasing voice.  “Should I grab a black wig and a bottle of jack or can I just paw at the blankets whining ‘ _love me_!’”

Combeferre snorts, but it’s a dead sort of sound, heavy and joyless.

“Come on, ‘Ferre.  You’ve been in here all day,” Courfeyrac says, her voice a little gentler.  “What’s broken your heart?”

The problem is that Combeferre doesn’t get her heart broken.  Jehan and Aurelie get their hearts broken, she thinks disdainfully, and then hates herself for it.  She loves every girl in this house, and she certainly doesn’t think Jehan and Aurelie are weak.  In fact, Jehan is stronger than all of them in many ways, much braver with her emotions.  And even Combeferre can see something admirable about Aurelie’s faith in love.  But Combeferre is not like that; she’s logical above all else.  That isn’t to say that she isn’t emotional, but she’s steady.  She’s the unmovable object surrounded by unstoppable forces.  It’s part of the reason she and Enjolras balance each other out so nicely, and also part of the reason why they both need Courfeyrac to breathe lightness into situations.

“If you don’t walk to talk, that’s okay,” Courfeyrac says casually, and Combeferre is shocked and maybe a little disappointed.  It’s silly to expect Courfeyrac to not respect her wishes, of course; leaving would technically make her a good friend.  But Combeferre really desperately wants to be ignored and sometimes she just needs someone else to know better than to listen to her words, which she’s always used as an armor as well as a sword.  It isn’t fair.  She knows it isn’t fair.  It makes her feel worse, knowing that she’s irrational as well as miserable.

But then Courfeyrac says, “But I’m coming in there,” and Combeferre only has enough time to think, ‘ _Coming in where?_ ’ before the mountain of blankets is shifting and the smell of Courfeyrac’s fruity coconut perfume hits her for the second time.

“Don’t-” Combeferre starts to protest, but then Courfeyrac is very much in her space, complaining about the heat and lack of light.

“This is cheery.  I can see why you would find it appealing,” the dark-haired girl muses.  They can’t see each other properly, but Combeferre can practically hear her sarcastic little smirk.  Despite the bite in her voice, Courfeyrac’s touches are exceedingly gentle, and Combeferre knows that she has no idea what she’s up against, no idea whether or not Combeferre is close to shattering apart in her hands.   Familiar fingers run over her shoulder – bare, since she’s still in the tank top she sleeps in – and down her arm, pausing to squeeze her wrist.  She feels arms wind around her waist soon after and her body fights between recoiling and pressing closer.  When a hand trails up her back to card into her hair, recoiling loses the battle and Combeferre latches onto the other girl, having not realized until just now that she very desperately needed someone to touch and be touched by.  It terrifies her how badly she needs that, needs this, needs arms wrapped around her and a hand to smooth down her hair.  When that same hand guides her face into Courfeyrac’s neck, her breath hitches and she’s crying again, holding onto Courfeyrac like she might be torn away at any moment.

“I’m right here,” Courfeyrac murmurs into her hair, and Combeferre only cries harder because,  _no, you doesn’t understand.  You won’t be_.

“Ah, honey,” Courfeyrac laments, and she must think Combeferre failed a test or slept through a quiz or deleted a paper that was almost completely done.  “Things probably look a lot darker than they actually are under all these blankets, you know.”

“Is Enjolras here?” Combeferre asks when she’s caught her breath again, her voice rough.

“Would I have crawled into this bed with you if Enjolras were here?”

“I honestly don’t know the answer to that.”  Courfeyrac’s happy laugh warms something in her for a brief moment; she’s always surprised and delighted whenever she’s the cause of that sound.

“She’s in the library still.  I don’t think she came home at all last night.  Unless she stayed in Grantaire’s room.  And I haven’t seen her all day.”

Combeferre loves Enjolras, honestly, but she’s not very good at failing in front of her, so it’s only after she hears this that she reaches up to pull the blankets away, Courfeyrac letting her slip out of the embrace.  It’s like a heavy fog lifts and Combeferre draws in her first deep, clean breath for the first time in a while, and it feels like a punch in the chest.

Combeferre is sure she looks unsightly.  She feels dirty and sweaty now that there’s fresh air against her face, which is most likely covered in ugly splotches of red and pink.  There’s hair matted to her face from earlier in the day when she was crying into her pillow, trying to keep the sound down in case one of the girls walked by her door or Enjolras happened to find her way home.  There’s probably yesterday’s mascara under her eyes and still cracking off of her eyelashes.  She’s in need of a shower and some dental hygiene, too, but Courfeyrac, who looks even more appealing up close, doesn’t flinch away from her, at least not while Combeferre is looking.

“Oh, ‘Ferre,” Courfeyrac says, quiet in a way she never is.  She reaches out to pull the straps of Combeferre’s tank top back up onto her shoulders and then brushes the hair away from her face, running her thumb almost regretfully over a tear stain.  “I know I said you didn’t have to talk about it, but I sort of really want to talk about it.  Mostly so I can find it and kick its ass.  Or, you know, recruit Bahorel to kick its ass.  Does it have an ass?”

Combeferre reaches past Courfeyrac to her nightstand and pulls away with the envelope in hand.  She flips it in her hands, so that Columbia’s seal glaring back at them in purple.  Realization dawns on the dark-haired girl’s face and Combeferre just hands her the letter and lets her read it for herself.

“Idiots,” Courfeyrac hisses as her eyes skim over the generic wording.  “They don’t deserve you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what it is.”

Courfeyrac’s eyes are burning.  “You’ll get in somewhere else.  Somewhere better.”

Combeferre takes a breath, trying to keep her expression together.

“I did.”

Courfeyrac blinks, and the fire dies with it.  “What?”

“Well, maybe not better,” Combeferre admits.  “But I got in somewhere else.”  Courfeyrac waits, her expression somewhere between excited and bewildered.  “UCLA.”

“Combeferre!” Courfeyrac exclaims, happy and proud, just like Combeferre thought she’d be.  “That’s… awesome.  UCLA, that sounds so much cooler than Columbia anyway.  And you look way better in blue than you do in purple, you know.”  She puts her hand on the side of the other girl’s neck and lets her thumb trace a little circle behind her ear.  “It’s okay not to win everything.  It’s Columbia’s loss, really.”

“That’s not it.”

Courfeyrac’s smile falls.  “What, then?”  She hates not understanding the other girls and Combeferre knows she’s always had some difficulty reading her.  Once upon a time, Combeferre had thought that made her more attractive potentially – a little mysterious if a little bookish – but now she’d give anything to have Courfeyrac read her mind.

“I know I’m not exciting or fun the way the rest of you are,” she explains slowly, pressing a nail into one of her cuticles.  “Which is fine, I mean… it’s sort of a waste of time to be upset about who you are, and I think I have other valuable traits, so I, you know.  I’m saying it’s fine – it’s good, even – that you’re you and I’m me and Enjolras is Enjolras and everyone just is who they are and it works out.”

“I could agree with some of that,” Courfeyrac says, tucking some of Combeferre’s short hair behind her ear.  “But even if I thought that you weren’t fun or exciting… that still doesn’t explain why you locked yourself in your room all day.”

Combeferre doesn’t look at her.  “I thought I’d get into Columbia.”

“You got into UCLA, which is no small-”

“It’s in California,” Combeferre snaps, and the word feels heavy on her tongue, like an ending.  She bows her head again because, in so many ways, she’s so incredibly lucky to have the opportunities she’s had and even luckier to be continuing on at a school of that size and prestige, but she can’t seem to stop shaking because she isn’t sure those are her priorities anymore, or if they ever were.  “It’s in California and you’re all here.”  She laughs, a sad, self-deprecating sort of noise and pulls her knees up to her chest so she can press her forehead against them.  “Fuck, this is so stupid.”

There’s a long drawn out pause, and Combeferre has a moment of panic when she wonders if Courfeyrac will uncomfortably point out that none of this was supposed to be forever and everyone else had always planned on this being their last year together and ask if – goodness forbid – Combeferre’s fucking  _in love_  with her or something equally ridiculous.

“It’s not stupid,” Courfeyrac eventually says, and Combeferre just whines because maybe it is and someone should just be honest with her, tell her to pull on her big girl panties and get over it.  “Hey.  It’s not stupid.  Those are my best friend’s feelings you’re talking shit about.  You wanna fight?”

“I don’t make friends the way the rest of you do,” Combeferre practically blurts, and she realizes she’s starting to get emotional again when Courfeyrac immediately starts trying to maneuver them closer together, pulling Combeferre away from her knees and pulling one of the comforters up around them.  “I literally crashed into Enjolras on move in day and spilled my books, and if she wouldn’t have immediately started grilling me about how I felt about Montesquieu and Mirabeau, I never would have spoken to her, and she never would have dragged me to rush.  And if you wouldn’t have verbally accosted me in the cafeteria, I never would have even thought to speak to you because why would anyone like you find me interesting?”  She’s ranting now, and it must be how Enjolras feels when she’s really worked up about something, only Combeferre feels like she’s falling apart instead of building something up.  “This isn’t me.  None of this is me.  But you and Enjolras and Jehan and Feuilly and everyone else… fuck, even R is one of the best friends I’ve ever had and I feel brighter and happier and  _useful_  and more alive when I’m with the rest of you, and you… you-”

Courfeyrac kisses her, then, on the corner of her mouth and it shuts her up.  It’s a good thing, because she isn’t sure where she was going with that last statement.

“We’ll fix it,” Courfeyrac promises, with a smile that easily reaches her eyes.

Combeferre looks as tired as she feels.  “How?”

“I don’t know.  But no one is throwing you out into California, okay?  We love you, you know that?  I love you a lot, in a couple different ways, maybe, so.  None of this unhappily ever after talk.”

They slide back down into the bed and Combeferre only spares a single passing thought for when Enjolras might come home, but she doubts that she’d be too offended to find two completely clothed girls cuddling in her room.  She lets herself be manhandled into place, her forehead pressed up against Courfeyrac’s, who is looking back at her with impossibly kind eyes.

“You belong here,” the other girls says, and maybe she can read Combeferre’s mind after all.  Combeferre closes her eyes to will away another onslaught of tears; she’s fairly certain she’s cried more today than she ever has in her life.  “You belong  _right_ here.”  The arms around her tighten.  “Got it?”

It won’t keep her in town and it’s certainly not a plan, but it makes her feel warmer.  Logic can wait another day.


End file.
